A new investment group, DealFlowNow, has launched in Austin to invest $60 million into early-stage companies.
Kelsey August, a super angel investor and entrepreneur, is the founding managing director of DealFlowNow. She sat down with Silicon Hills News last Friday to talk about the focus of DealFlowNow.
“I’ve been doing angel investing for a decade full-time, and it was really hard to find the right thesis for me locally on deal flow,” August said. “So, I thought I’d create a platform where it’d be really easy for entrepreneurs for free to put their profile up. So instead of me hunting and pecking, we could drive traffic, and we do it inbound instead of me going in my car to all the meetings across town.”
August currently has forty active portfolio companies. She is also an entrepreneur who founded Lone Star Direct, a marketing firm, when she was 24.
DealFlowNow is a collection of super angels and family offices seeking to invest funding in innovative, disruptive startups. It is sector-agnostic but is particularly interested in evaluating companies that qualify for the Qualified Small Business Stock exemption.
As a women-led organization, DealFlowNow aims to level the playing field in fundraising by using some of its funds to invest in underrepresented founders. In 2022, U.S. startups with all women-founded teams received just 1.9 percent of all VC funds. The situation is even worse for female entrepreneurs of color. Black and Latina women founders received merely .1 percent.
August said some of her best investments have come from underrepresented founders.
“I made all my money from investing and on underrepresented folks,” August said. So I want to give back and reinvest and you know, double down and triple down.”
Crowdfunding is also giving a significant boost to underrepresented founders, August said. Because the Securities and Exchange Commission has changed the definition of an accredited investor. The SEC made the changes in August of 2020. The new definition “allows investors to qualify as accredited based on defined measures of professional knowledge, experience or certifications in addition to the existing tests for income and net worth.”
“You just need to be an expert in that field,” August said. “You don’t need to be a millionaire or make $200,000 a year. So, I think that it’s widening, and opportunities are getting better for everyone.”
August said Austin is an attractive hub for technology, innovation, and startups because of the “weird” vibe.
“Of course, we have strong universities here, strong government, but I really believe our mantra, Keep Austin Weird, is the third leg,” August said.
August said Austin is an encouraging and optimistic city with excellent entrepreneurial resources.
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